Pentagon on Afghanistan: US ‘Can’t Really Leave’

While presenting it as a shift in President Obama’s mindset, Pentagon officials are talking up the idea that the US occupation of Afghanistan, which began in late 2001, is not just extended for a couple of additional years but will continue for several more decades, and for all intents and purposes may as well be permanent.

Despite making some statements of aversion to “endless war,” President Obama has never really appeared all that eager to end the Afghanistan occupation, and the end dates were always speculative dates set by NATO to give the impression the war was winding down.

Yet all along, these end dates were based on the assumption of a nigh-miraculous improvement in the Afghan military that hasn’t happened yet, and it was always more or less assumed the date would just keep getting punted down the road until victory just sort of happens.

The change isn’t that the US is staying, but that the Pentagon is doing away with the pretense of leaving in any measurable timeframe. From the Afghan military’s widespread corruption to the growth of ISIS in the nation’s southeast, all the military talking points are now that the Afghans aren’t ready, but that these Afghans likely never will be.

Instead, the shift toward “generational war” means measuring success a few decades down the road, to see if the Pentagon can successfully rear the Afghan children being born today into the sort of pro-US warrior state that they’d feel comfortable turning back over to its population. If not, we just roll the dice on the next generation, and so on.

26 thoughts on “Pentagon on Afghanistan: US ‘Can’t Really Leave’”

Looks like we have replaced the British East India Company. Where ever they haven’t implanted their flag permanently, we’re going to place ours. 700 world wide bases including those countries we conquered in WW2 and since. The UN is a fraud since we have a veto in the Security Council and nuclear weapons.

astonishingly ridiculous story about a guy in a cave that somehow could blow up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon!
..almost singlehandedly..
——–
meanwhile AntiWar, in spite of a mountain range of evidence, goes: Evidence, what evidence?

“But you don’t see any problem with the Bush-Cheney Administration’s ‘ story’..?”

Actually, I see numerous problems with it. That’s not what’s at issue here.

What’s at issue is the insistence of some that everyone else accept their “feeling certain” of an alternative story, even though after nearly 15 years they have yet to come up with so much as an iota of evidence for that alternative story.

– The false claim that aircraft couldn’t be scrambled from Andrews in a reasonable amount of time to respond to the likely threat to DC.
– Silverstein’s “pull it” comment on WTC 7.
– The fact that I’ve seen what it looks like when a cruise missile penetrates reinforced concrete, and the hole in the Pentagon looks just like that.
– The omission/dismissal from the “official version” of accounts of explosions subsequent to the plane impacts and close or identical in time to the towers’ collapse.

There are others, but that should do for starters.

But there’s a huge gap between the questions as to what actually happened and the assertions by “inside job” proponents as to what actually happened. And that gap has yet to be filled with evidence.

Get real. Your problem is not that I DON’T question the official story. Your problem is that I DO question your story.

Before the troops were drawn down the US was squandering $8 billion A MONTH in Afghanistan. Recently we read about a $4 million gas station eventually costing $40 million and is still not in use. Millions each month go into the pockets of “Ghost” soldiers who only exist on paper…the Afghan generals cash their checks.

So the next time you hear a chicken hawk congressman saying we don’t have the money to improve our infrastructure think of that Afghan gas station.

Just amazes me how all that dope is still flowing like a river out of Afghanistan, at least since after 9/11 when we went in.

Of course, just before 9/11 the big bad Taliban banned the cultivation of Opium and the crop plummeted 90%.

2 and 2 ??

During the Vietnam war all the dope came out of the Golden Triangle of Burma, Cambodia. Laos. Then when Reagan had his little proxy war in Central America all the crack flooded into Los Angles. Now we have been in Afghanistan for 15 years and the Opium crop is breaking all records.

Baghram Air Force Base is like
“Publishers Clearing House”..
for heroin.

Nobody ever knew where Dirty Dick Cheney was…
Well he apparently made more than two dozen trips to Afghanistan..!

Moreover..on the way back from Afghanistan he always stopped over in Cairo, Egypt..(go figure)

Turns out..his pal..Hosni Mubarak had $72 billion dollars in his Swiss bank account when he was finally deposed..!

Wow..that’s quite alot of money to embezzle from the state coffers…
that is..
by doing it the old fashioned way:
stealing,
influence peddling
and taking kickbacks.

Ostensibly..could he have had a little business on the side?

Anybody gonna follow the money..?
Hell no.

Keep in mind..I don’t have any special knowledge…I’m just a guy who reads the paper.

But I happened to notice when good ole Assistant Director of the CIA ..
Buzzy Fuzzy Krongard shorted the airlines and insurance stocks three days before 9-11..

A million to one coincidence…
and nobody followed the money…lol

Nobody thought it was peculiar when the India Times reported that Pakistani
General Mahmoud Ahmed, head of the Pakistani I.S.I., bank wired Mohammed Atta $100,000…a week before 9-11…
and of course..nobody investigated that.

Strange, huh..?

Briefly, but importantly..
let me also mention…
on a different but related note:

I have no problem at all with Antiwar.com’s position.

They are not a 9-11 truth site.

They are ( an excellent) news reporting website (syndicate) that covers a broad range of issues.

It’s a big tent…and alot of issues.

They certainly don’t exclude, censor or disparage comments made by people who consider themselves 9-11 Truthers.

BTW..they spend 90% of their ink just trying to debunk today’s lies by the U.S.
Government.

Everyday..there’s a plethora of new
Government lies to debunk.

Actually..it’s easy to see the truth.

Everything the US Government
tells us is a lie.

If you could go to Vegas and make a bet:
The US is telling the truth or
the US is lying..

If you put your money on lying..
you would never lose a bet..!

Yesterday,
Today,
Tomorrow.

Afghanistan
Iraq
Libya

Iran
Syria
the Ukraine…
All lies.

Frankly, I can’t recall even one time..
one incident..
one issue they told the truth.
Can you..?

Not some pinko liberal, a Republican U.S. Army Colonel, Lawrence Wilkerson, former national security advisor to the Reagan administration who spent years as an assistant to Secretary of State Colin Powell during both Bush administrations,

I actually watched it to the end, all 20 odd minutes. I do not know when, but something wicked is already here and growing, a cancer kept secret that will eventually kill us: It is the geometric increase that Capitalism always requires, unendingly upwards returns on unending increases in capital. That is why Capitalism will always have booms and busts where the poor and uninformed pay while the top rakes in the losers capital.

God Bless you Jimmy..!
Exactly.
I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

Oh, it’s here already..!
The cancer on the body politic.

And clearly, we are going to need surgery.
I always recall H. Ross Perot’s 1992 statement:

“…We need to get a shovel and clean out the barn…!…”

a footnote:

Moreover, sadly, Gen. Colin Powell
and his extremely bright and talented adjutant,
Colonel Wilkerson,
got involved with the Gangsters in the White House
and have real first hand insight and experience.

In other words, trust me, Wilkerson doesn’t blow smoke out his ass
like all the other sycophants.
He knows what he’s talking about.

Assuming that you showed both your screeds and my replies to “professors” (highly unlikely) and assuming that these “professors” are at all familiar with legal process, they would presumably have pointed out to you that a trial is something that happens after probable cause has been shown to believe that a particular person has committed a particular crime.

If you’ve got evidence to suggest that a particular person committed a particular crime, feel free to share it.

And no, I don’t attack all 9/11 Truthers. I’m a 9/11 Truther myself. The kind who’s actually interested in fact and evidence, as opposed to “I waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaant this to be the truth, so it haaaaaaaaaaaas to be the truth.”

Wow..!
All I get is more distortion and confusion out of you.
Oh my goodness..!
That’s your reply..?

3000 people died
I say they were murdered.
Who knows…let’s find out?

Was a crime committed…?

There are so many unanswered questions.

Here’s how it works in America Tommy.

A District Attorney of a County or Attorney General of a state…

who had a citizen from their city or state killed…
Would convene a Grand Jury and examine the just the known facts…
example your 3 questions
Timeline..Silversteins tape..entrance hole in Pentagon
Tjen come to a conclusion on wether to proveed with a trial.
That simple Einstein.
Do you think we have enough questions to start the process..?
Yes or no..?
Yes or no..?

Real simple Tommy..?
And where is your 5 team parlay…?
Any Arabic terrorists can hit a 116 team parlay..?

Yep..both my wife and daughter are PhDs.

Anyway Tommy..
In your bio it says Master of the Universe…
LOL

Realize..when we are asking all these questions we are standing right in front og the American Flag..!
There isnt a real 9-11 Truth advocate anywhere in the world that blows as much smoke out his ass as you.
Your a fraud.
As I stated in my first post to you..m
Your a Copperhead
Scratch the surface and you get a right wing hillbilly.

Anyway…thanks for the chuckles.
Obviously..if ou could answer you would have already.